Who Shot the Daytime Soap? Discussion

[ChitHappens]

Um, I hate to break it to you, but David Hasselhoff's concert was going to be a bust no matter what!

[Jonathan]

I'm sure there were folks who had planned to watch his concert that night. Maybe.

[John]

Yeah It was Jim Frazer on GL in the mid 60's played by Billy Dee Williams (Jan 1966-October 1966), then James Earl Jones (Oct 1966- May 1967) and his wife, Martha played by Cicley Tyson (Jan 1966-Dec 1966) then Ruby Dee (Jan 1967-Dec 1967)

Also Agnes was GL HW when this story began

[DramatistDreamer]

Damn, GL got no credit for breaking ground. Look at that roster of famous actors!

[EnglishTea]

The OJ trial was not weeks, it was months. Initially, the shows were preempted for portions of their episodes, which just served to piss off fans.

Then, as the preemption periods became longer and longer, the shows either did not air at all on the date or they aired in the middle of the night.

This began to erode regular viewing.

The OJ trial also proved that real life drama (reality shows) can sometime have more drama than the daytime dramas (in the 90's, it was a big push to stop referring to them as soap operas).

[allmc2008]

Wasn't there a push back in the 70's too? I have read a lot of interviews from the 70s and before and the daytime people didn't refer them as soaps or was that just the "Company Culture" of the time??

Also, what were they trying to rename the genre??

[DramatistDreamer]

I remember this, was it... the Lakers one of the teams playing? I just remember players seated during the Half Time just watching the Bronco chase on the big screen. Even they were rapt. I've never seen anything like that. In the middle of basketball game, the players, the crowd, all watching the news up on the screen.

This also seemed to mark the beginning of news outlets (particularly cable news) broadcasting live police chases, no matter how silly (a practice I think was just dropped by most news media outlets). Helicopters filming the scene below became all the rage after that.

This makes me wonder though, what did the soaps do to try to get viewers back? I am curious because I know Marland's passing left ATWT in a state of storyline suspension. I remember tuning in '94 (pre OJ madness) and didn't feel as if the storylines were cohesive. There were a lot of characters who just seemed to be floating with no purpose. I guess the writers at that time might have been in a state of indecision with these characters or their trajectories. For me, it was not exactly scintillating what was being offered. I was absorbed with school though so after the OJ trial was offer, I can't say that I would've been a devoted viewer at that time anyway.

[Melroser]

I was kind of hoping that this show would get deeper into backstage goings-on, especially with the AMC/OL-Brian Frons drama.Then I was thinking that TVGN has just barely gotten into "the soap game". How much should they really push the envelope and scoop all the backstage drama when they are trying to have soaps on their channel? It probably wouldn't make sense to go after soap executives and the powers-that-be if you are trying to bring these shows/shows about soaps to your network. If they charged out of the gate would they get any cooperation in the future from people at these shows? Having the actors (like Judi Evans, for example) state what they knew/heard puts it on the actors and not those producing the TVGN show.

Of course, I want ALL the backstage drama from these shows but how the show was put together makes sense to me.

[DramatistDreamer]

I was hoping to hear about some of the decisions (creative and production) that may have been a mistake and possibly led to the erosion of the audience. I remember reading how Eileen Fulton proposed some ideas on how to market the show during the 70s/80s to the big brass and she mentioned that they seemed closed to any ideas.

Even if the likes of P&G would have evaded, it would have been valuable to get the perspective of some of the executives, perhaps the ones no longer connected to daytime could speak freely to hear from them whether there were any coulda shoulda woulda moments. That was definitely missing from this program but maybe that's a completely different show.

[EricMontreal22]

I think there was at least one contract female black actress on AW under Agnes too (which would have been roughly around the same time since Aggie wrote GL and AW together for a year or so and then AW and OLTL for a while together too.) Unless she has her soaps confused, Nixon mentioned how P&G refused to let her have a black character and a white one be roomates together (two women--obviously not romantic) so ABC allowing her so much freedom at One Life, relatively was a gift.

I'd still like to see this (youtube anyone?) but it sounds like we got the kind of show I'd expect. I wouldn't think to hear too many execs--at least ones who still hang on to some hope of a job somewhere, sounding off on it. I mean it would be great to have a video version of Llanview in the Afternoon (and even there some people apparently refused to talk,) but that's not what I expect on the TVGuide station or whatever. Isn't there still some other "end of soaps" documentary in the works? Or wait, was this it just under a new name?

Here in Canada we briefly had a cable series about soaps maybe five years back (I can't remember the name, but Nelson B was, ugh, one of the talking heads) but it was virtually completely frivolous and worthless.

[John]

Nixon said Irna didnt think black and whiues would love together or eat together in a scene that the audience wouldnt buy it